


a new way to breathe

by casfallsinlove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Dean Works in a Bookstore, Fluff, Homeless Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1947243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casfallsinlove/pseuds/casfallsinlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean was a kid he got sent to juvie and it was there, of all places, that he fell in love with books. Now he's thirty and the owner of a successful bookstore, where a scruffy homeless guy called Castiel likes to keep hanging around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a new way to breathe

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally posted on [tumblr](http://casfallsinlove.tumblr.com) as part of a trope meme challenge thing (a trope meme challenge thing that i technically still haven't finished sshhhh)

When he was fifteen, Dean got sent to juvie. He’s sort of forgotten why; he used to get into trouble a lot and the trips to the sheriff’s office have all sort of blurred into one in the years that have passed. It’s not like he was a  _bad_ kid, but with a deadbeat dad and a baby brother to look after, he did what he had to. 

Anyway, the point is Dean got sent to juvie for a few months and it was there, of all places, that he fell in love with books. 

He would read anything he could get his hands on from the detention center’s small, battered library; crime thrillers, dystopians, fantasy, horror. He’d consume them hungrily, desperately. His fellow inmates would make fun of him, but he didn’t care when he had a Sherlock Holmes mystery to solve or his brain was too busy focusing on what Kafka had  _really_ meant or he was just lost in a world where magic was real. 

When he got out, he sorted himself out. By the time he was nineteen he had graduated high school and was working weekends in Barnes & Noble and mornings in the local library. By the time he was twenty-five he had applied for a loan from the bank and bought a scruffy little storefront on the edge of town. Now, at thirty, his scruffy little storefront is a pretty damn successful bookstore. 

He stocks virtually everything apart from  _Fifty Shades of Gray_ and has built up a loyal collection of regular customers. There’s Charlie, who’ll spend hours flicking through the comic book section; Benny, who works at the diner next door and comes in to browse the cookbooks during his lunch; Garth, who leads a kids’ reading group every Saturday morning with his sock puppet pal, Mr. Fizzles; Donna Hanscum, the only sheriff Dean has ever liked and who has a fondness for the classics; and then there’s Cas. 

Cas is homeless, Dean thinks. Either that or the guy’s pretty damn hard off. He only seems to have three changes of clothes and spends nearly all day every day curled up on one of the store’s squashy armchairs with his tatty brown leather briefcase beside him. He’ll pick up the same book every day, always from the bargain dollar box, and read it until he’s finished. Only then, and only occasionally, will he buy it. 

Normally Dean would put a stop to this, because hey Cas is kinda treating him like a library and he’s trying to make a living here, but there’s something so earnest about the way Cas will meticulously count out a dollar in pennies and nickels and flush, embarrassed, as he tips the coins into Dean’s waiting hand. 

So Dean doesn’t say anything, and over the months he’s even gotten Cas to open up slightly. His name came first, after Dean had introduced himself and waited expectantly, and it had pretty much snowballed from there. Cas is so easy to talk to, mainly because he doesn’t say much, but what he does say is always worth hearing. He discusses books and he’ll listen to Dean’s drama and Dean’s loves and Dean’s hates, but he never mentions his own situation or family or why he has to scrape together change to buy books.

That’s okay. Dean gets how important books are to people and at some point, god knows how or when, Cas became important to him. He finds himself dropping books he thinks Cas will like in the bargain box, even if they’re worth ten dollars, and doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the wondrous expression on Cas’s face the week he had a two-for-one promotion. 

Then he starts going to bed at night and waking up in the morning thinking about the scruff on Cas’s face, the solemn blue of his eyes, those long fingers which touch the books with such care and reverence. 

(And sometimes, if Dean thinks about those fingers touching _him_ like that, and those eyes fluttering shut in pleasure, and that scruff under his lips… maybe that’s okay too.)

On a rainy day in October Cas comes in looking like a drowned rat, weirdly carrying his briefcase flat in his palms and his jaw is set in determination and then he puts the case on the counter and clicks it open. 

For the first time ever, Dean gets to see what’s inside. 

It’s neat and orderly, full of books and—for some reason—a lone sweater. There are a couple of journals, but there’s a toothbrush in the place a pen should be and on top of everything (and possibly why Cas was carrying it like it was a bomb about to go off) is a shop-bought pie. 

"Dude, you brought pie?" Dean says in wonder.

"Yes, for you. I saved up for it," Cas says quietly, and Dean thinks of the pennies and nickels and warmth surges through his fingertips. 

"You got pie for  _me_?”

Cas shuffles on the spot, absently picking a stray thread in his hoodie as he glances at Dean once, twice, and mutters, “Everything in my life is a mess, but when I come here I can forget all that. When I see you, I don’t feel broken. I feel at peace. I just wanted to thank you for that, Dean.”

Dean’s chest is on fire behind his ribcage and happiness is eating him up and he’s pretty sure he’s not reading this wrong so he leans over the briefcase and the pie and cups Cas’s jaw in his hands and presses his warm, dry lips to Cas’s cold, rain-damp ones.

A hand lands on Dean’s arm, fisting the fabric of his sleeve as Cas makes a soft noise in the back of his throat. The counter is digging into Dean’s stomach but he doesn’t care. He only cares about the finely trembling body on the other side of it, and when he finally stops kissing Cas, who looks a little dumbstruck but a lot pleased, Dean takes one of the books he’d put aside and says, “So, tell me you like Vonnegut or I’m gonna have to kill you.” 

And Cas laughs and says that he does, and then everything’s back to normal except not, because it's a thousand times better.


End file.
